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LAS VEGAS – When it comes to racing franchises, Sony has gotten a lot of mileage out of Polyphony Digital’s Gran Turismo games. The driving simulation has sold over 60 million copies worldwide since it launched on the original PlayStation in 1998. The most recent version, Gran Turismo 5, sold over 5.5 million copies globally last year. For the first time ever, Sony is expanding the game through downloadable content. The first DLC pack has already sold over 1 million copies at $9.99 per download.

Sony used the 9th Annual Gran Turismo Awards to further enhance the game franchise. Every year, Gran Turismo creator Kazunori Yamauchi travels to Las Vegas to attend the SEMA (Specialty Equipment Market Association) trade show. The industry-only show is a wall-to-wall (and parking lot-filled) car extravaganza with the best car makers in the world modifying all types of vehicles into exactly the type of cars you’d want to drive in a videogame. And Sony does just that.

"For the past nine years, the Gran Turismo Awards has recognized and rewarded automotive enthusiasts who demonstrate passion and enthusiasm for PlayStation games, and amazing car design and performance," said Yamauchi. "We continue to be blown away by the quality of the vehicles that are submitted.”

This year’s celebration was held at the swank new Cosmopolitan Hotel, which has become the hot spot for game publishers of late. Sony held a huge party at the sheik Marquee Nightclub, which featured a concert by Stone Temple Pilots. The focal point of the night was the custom etched PlayStation 3 consoles that were handed out to the top real-life vehicles at the show by Yamauchi, himself.

Prior to SEMA 2011, all exhibitors were invited to enter their vehicles into the Gran Turismo Awards, which honor five different categories comprised of: Best Domestic Automobile, Best European Import, Best Hot Rod, Best Asian Import, and Best Truck/SUV. Judges consisted of various respected automotive journalists representing media outlets such as Motor Trend, CNET, and Super Street with judging for each category based on a balance between performance, style, and speed. Yamauchi then bestowed the Best in Show award honor to one of these five category winners. This year’s Best Hot Rod winner Mary Pozzi took the top honors for her 1973 custom Chevrolet Camaro.

The interesting aspect of this event is that gamers will be able to drive a virtual version of that very Camaro next year. A team of developers from Polyphony Digital will fly to Pozzi’s home and take her car through the full gamut of photos, sound capture and video capture so that the real vehicle can be transferred into Gran Turismo 5. So far, seven of the eight previous winning vehicles have been released in a GT console game. But with the advent of DLC, Yamauchi said it’s now even easier for his team to release winning vehicles directly to gamers. The Camaro is expected to be released in 2012.

In another interesting melding of the real world and virtual, the GT Awards also featured Bryan Heitkotter, a gamer who has become a real race driver thanks to Sony’s GT Academy. In its U.S. debut, Sony, Polyphony Digital, and Nissan North America gave consumers a chance to get behind the wheel of a real race car through GT5. Heitkotter beat out over 53,000 competitors who registered for GT Academy and is now a Nissan-sponsored professional race car driver and part of a four-person team that will race the 24-hour race in Dubai in January 2012. Heitkotter's journey with GT Academy is currently being shown on the Speed Channel, PlayStation Network, and Hulu, via a reality show series that chronicles the competition and the winner's road to stardom earlier this year.

“The competition started out with several online rounds that you played from your home on Playstation Network and they whittled it down to the top 32 in the country, which was eight drivers per region and they divided the U.S. into four regions,” explained Heitkotter. “Those top 32 went to Orlando, Florida for the National Finals, where it was live head-to-head GT5 competition. And from there the top 16 went on to Silverstone, England for a week-long racing school boot camp. At the end of that week, I came out on top and I’m in the midst of a six month’s driver development program. I have my international racing license and have been racing Nissan 370Zs since the beginning of July.”

Yamauchi told me it was always his dream since creating the original Gran Turismo game that one day a gamer would graduate to real race driving with the help of his driving simulation. Thanks to the advent of technology, Heitkotter was able to use GT5 to literally help become a professional race car driver.